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Tjhe You^g JvIan 

Four-square 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Shelf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE. 

YOUNG MAN 
FOURSQUARE 



Rev. James I. Vance 

Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Va. 



w7 > 



FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

New York : : Chicago : : Toronto 

Publishers of Evangelical Literature. 









-I HE Life* ay 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



. V 3 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1894, by 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



'The city lieth foursquare." Rev. 21 : 16. 



DEDICATED 
TO 

Every Young Man 

Who has an Ambition to Make 

the Most of Himself 

and HIS 

Opportunities. 



" And stand foursquare to all the winds that blow." 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

I. The Young Man in Business 7 

II. The Young Man in Society 32 

III. The Young Man in Politics 58 

IV. The Young Man in Religion 77 



CHAPTER I. 

THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 

11 Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? he shall stand be- 
fore kings; he shall not stand before obscure men" Prov. 

22 : 2Q. 

At ten years of age, Benjamin Franklin was 
cutting wicks for tallow candles in a Boston 
chandler's shop. At seventeen, on a Sabbath 
morning, we find him trudging through the 
streets of Philadelphia, with all his earthly 
possessions on his back and in his pockets. 
The sum total of his assets consisted of some 
old clothes, a dollar in silver, a shilling in cop- 
per coin, and — himself. As he tramped by, 
a girl who afterward became his wife looked 
out of the window and laughed at the gro- 
tesque figure of young Franklin. But the lad 
was diligent. He applied himself assiduously. 
He had a genius for work. His abilities were 
soon recognized. He rose. By and by, he 
became the founder of the University of Penn- 
sylvania and of the American Philosophical 

[7] 



THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 



Society. And little more than half a cent- 
ury after that Sabbath morning when we saw 
him walking along the streets of Philadelphia, 
the butt of a girl's ridicule, we find him stand- 
ing before the king of France, the accredited 
ambassador plenipotentiary of the United 
States of America. 

Joseph was diligent in his business, and 
he passed from the prison cell to the throne 
of Egypt. Daniel was diligent in business, 
and he passed from slavery to the premiership 
of the Babylonian empire. Nehemiah was 
diligent in business, and he passed from exile 
and obscurity to the glory of a rebuilded Jeru- 
salem and a restored Jewish throne. God 
keeps his word. Diligence is crowned. 

To the young man who is just on the thresh- 
old of his business career, I would com- 
mend most emphatically this maxim culled 
from the book of Proverbs, God's code for 
business life. 

Let us give the word "business" more than 
its technical meaning in this discussion. Let 
us make it ampler than barter and sale, than 
bargain and contract. Let it stand for one's 
vocation in life, whether that be a trade, or a 
profession, or a calling ; whether one sells 
goods or teaches school, or plods at manual 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 9 

toil for a daily wage. Whatever your distinct- 
ive life work is, that is your business. 

I. 

And now my first word to you is that every 

YOUNG MAN SHOULD BE IN SOME BUSINESS. 

God has not sent us into the world merely to 
have a good time. We are here for something 
more than to ornament society. Living is 
not playing. God has ordained work. He 
has set aside six days out of every seven for 
that purpose, and he is as truly served by 
filling the six days with earnest, active toil, as 
he is by sanctifying the one day with rest. 

Work is a blessing. It is the antidote for 
many a sickness. Work ! It makes the eye 
clear and the complexion rosy. It makes the 
muscles strong, and the brain clean, and sends 
the blood swirling through artery and vein at 
a healthy gait. It is nature's panacea for half 
the ills that afflict the body. There would be 
less dyspepsia, and consequently less of the 
religion that makes people miserable, if there 
were more exercise of the body in the sort of 
work that God sent Adam to do when he left 
Paradise. 

Work is honorable. Jesus took his place in 
the ranks of the working classes, and from that 



1 THE YO UNG MAN FO URSQ UARE. 

time it has been hard for a young man to get 
into better company than that of the working- 
people. 

And work is right. Idleness is wrong. Idle- 
ness is the suicide of our noblest manhood. 
' ' The desire of the slothful killeth him ; for 
his hands refuse to labor." 1 

If there is one thing more than another that 
destroys self-respect and forfeits all claim to 
the respect of one's neighbors, it is for a young 
man to take advantage of the hard work of his 
father or grandfather, who may have accumu- 
lated a fortune, to keep from working himself. 
A little girl mentioned to me one day a man's 
name, the father of one of her little playmates, 
and I carelessly asked, "What does he do ?" 
"He doesn't do anything," she said. "O! 
he is an invalid. " And with a look on her 
childish face that tried to be an apology for 
what she was convinced could not be quite 
right, she answered, " No ; his father supports 
him. His father is rich." 

When did money ever become letters-patent 
to a perpetual baby-hood ? No, no ! a for- 
tune can never exempt a man from the 
obligation to work. No matter how fine a 
property your ancestors may have left you, 
young man, go into some business on your 

1 Prov. 21 :25. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. \\ 

own account. The finest legacy ever handed 
down from sire to son is not bank account, 
nor landed property, nor bonds yielding a safe 
per cent. The very finest legacy, apart from 
a Christian example, that parents ever trans- 
mit to their sons and daughters is a legacy of 
industrious habits. 

Many young men grow up with the notion 
that the world owes them a living. A fate 
over which they had no control has brought 
them here, and now it must take care of 
them. Some of them have an idea that any 
community is just a bit more respectable for 
numbering them among its citizens ; and that 
the old earth thrills through with a throb of 
deeper pride every time their foot touches 
terra firma. Young men would best climb 
down from that sort of pedestal as soon as 
possible. We are making a tremendous mis- 
take in the estimate of our assets. The world 
does not owe any body a living ; but we owe 
the world the work of a true, honest, indus- 
trious life. We must make some returns for 
the space we occupy on this planet. 

Out on the railroad track stands a locomo- 
tive. She is a perfect piece of machinery, 
every bolt and wheel and screw in place, and 
all working in thorough harmony. She is 



12 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

beautiful, but the engine was not bought for 
that. She would not be suffered to stand on 
the track an hour, unless she could do some- 
thing. She is a beauty because of her serv- 
ice ; and the world is after her service. It is 
not lineage nor possession nor station, but 
service that crowns us with the royalty of true 
manhood. 

So there comes a day in the life of every 
young man, made of the right stuff, when he 
must go out to service. He can tarry under 
the old home-roof no longer, home-fed and 
home-cared for. He must begin his life work. 
It is a moment of supreme meaning. The dor- 
mant powers of the man he is to be are waking 
up now. He has thought much of that busy 
life that awaits him, and of the great world. 
He has had his dreams and fancies, his hours 
of vague ambitions and wonderment ; but 
reality has come now. The castles in the 
air must come down out of cloud-land and 
show whether they have form and substance 
enough to endure. 

It is a better day than any that has ever 
come to the young man before — this day 
when fact supplants fancy, when visions are 
to scatter before realities, and doing is to take 
the place of dreaming. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 13 

" Dreaming is pleasant, I know, my boy ; 
Dreaming is pleasant, I know. 
To dream of that wonderful far-off day 
When you '11 be a man and have only to say 
To this one and that one, Do that and do this, 
While your wishes fulfillment never shall miss, 
May fill you with pleasure ; but deeper the joy 
Of doing a thing yourself, my boy — 
Of doing a thing yourself." 

And so the young man stands there a mo- 
ment, his foot on the front door-step, his hand 
on the door-knob, childhood behind him and 
manhood before him, and opening wide his 
eyes, he looks the great, big world straight in 
the face. 

There is one question that must be an- 
swered. He has determined to do something. 
What shall he do ? He has determined to go 
into business. What business ? That ques- 
tion demands careful and mature considera- 
tion. The young man will receive much 
advice from his friends and relatives. Cir- 
cumstances will come up as a factor in settling 
the problem. But it is too big a matter to 
be settled by advice and environment. The 
business which the young man chooses now 
will have much to do in making his life a suc- 
cess or a failure. He will have to follow this 
business a long time perhaps. It will grow 



14 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

terribly monotonous and irksome, if it be not 
congenial. A blunder here is almost fatal. 

What shall be your business in life ? That 
question is worth praying over. It is worth 
going down on your knees before God, and 
asking that divine light may shine upon the 
pathway. 

Put your sentiments and pride aside, and let 
your common sense have full play in deciding 
this matter. I commend two elements for 
your consideration. 

First, the openings. There are some of the 
professions crammed to overflowing. There 
are trades where competition is so fierce that 
mechanics have banded themselves together 
in " unions " to prevent any, beyond a certain 
number, learning the trade. It is poor policy 
for you to throw yourself away by trying to do 
what is already overdone. Better enter on a 
work where the opportunities are larger, and 
success is not reached by climbing over the 
ruin of competitors. A merchant invests his 
capital where it will yield the best returns. 
Why not be as worldly wise in the investment 
where your life is the capital ? 

The other consideration has reference to 
your special fitness. What is your talent ? 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 15 

We cannot all do everything ; still God rarely 
makes a man but can do something. What 
can you do best ? Study your native endow- 
ments, your individual bent. Is it literature ? 
Is it mechanics ? Is it law ? Is it finance ? 
Do n't be so much concerned in getting a 
business that will make you respectable, as in 
getting one that you can make respectable. 
Better thrive at a trade than starve as a poet. 
Better make a good mason than an indifferent 
physician. 

With sturdy common sense, studying your 
surroundings and yourself ; and with faith in 
God, earnestly seeking divine guidance, you 
will not go far astray in the search for your 
work in life. 

Having found that, do it. Stick to it. 
Day after day, steadily, with fullness of pur- 
pose, and fixity of aim, press toward the mark 
for the prize of your calling. 

II. 

And now with this first question settled, the 
next matter is your business principles. 
That your life-work go forward steadily and 
well, it should be ballasted with sound prin- 
ciples. 



16 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

Turn a locomotive loose in the field, and it 
will make little headway. It will only go plow- 
ing through mud and gravel, through soil and 
stream to its own destruction. But put it on 
that gleaming track of shining steel, and away 
it sweeps out into the darkness, racing with 
the wind, bearing freight and carrying pas- 
sengers across the continent. Sound princi- 
ples are to business life, what the shining 
track of ballasted steel rails is to the locomo- 
tive. They enable it to get up momentum. 
They guide it to the right destination. Let 
us throw these principles into the shape of 
certain maxims. There are some maxims 
that pass current in a certain type of com- 
mercial life, which I would have you reject. 

One of these says, ' ' Take every man for a 
rascal until you find him out better/ ' You 
will meet with a great many rascals in the 
course of your business career, but it is wisest 
not to anticipate them. The disagreeable 
comes soon enough anyhow. It is better to 
think the best of our fellow-men. Life is a 
dreadfully vexatious thing to the man who is 
convinced that he is surrounded by thieves, 
liars, and sneaks. Be cautious, of course, but 
it will be soon enough to take your neighbor 
for a rascal, when he is proved to be such. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 17 

Another maxim to reject is, "An eye for 
an eye and a tooth for a tooth." You can 
reach a certain kind of success in this way, to 
be sure, but such success is purchased at too 
great a price. It is such a pity to be an 
animal when one might be a man. Instead 
of grabbing and grasping, with sordid greed, 
all that is within our reach, it is sweeter and 
diviner to suffuse our very bargains with 
thoughtfulness for others. 

Then do n't determine to ' i make money at 
all hazards." It is well enough to make 
money, and I hope you will make a great deal 
of it, but do n't let money-making be the chief 
end of your life. Do n't let your soul dwindle 
down to the dimensions of a dollar. Run a 
heavy mark through all such maxims as these 
and cancel them forever from your business 
life. In their stead will you let me suggest 
the following : — 

i . Be master of your business. Do n't let 
your business master you. In the busy rush 
and sharp competition of secular activity, it 
will sometimes be hard for you to keep this. 
Many a man, as he goes down to business in 
the morning, needs to offer some such prayer 
as that which Lord Ashley made on the brink 
of the battle of Edgehill : "O Lord, thou 



18 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

knowest that I must be very busy to-day. 
If I forget thee, do not thou, O Lord, for- 
get me." 

There are men in some of our offices and 
counting-rooms that are as veritably slaves as 
any that ever picked cotton on a Southern 
plantation. They are under the whip of a 
master. Their business has mastered them, 
and their lives are getting narrower, darker, 
harder day by day, under the galling yoke of 
this bondage. However much he may have 
accumulated, it may be gravely questioned 
whether such a man has not failed after all. 
There are duties to home, to society, to 
church, to wife and children, to God ; and 
business cares have enslaved us, when they 
prevent the discharge of duties like these. 

2. Be proud of your business. Whatever it 
may be, do n't blush when you have to tell 
men how you make your living. Somebody 
has said that the man who is above his busi- 
ness, will soon find his business above him. 

3. Refuse from the beginning to go security. 
This will be a maxim hard to keep. As secular 
life is now organized, it seems almost essential 
that we have suretyships. There will be a day 
when some friend will come to you and ask 
you to put your name on his paper, and it will 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 19 

be very hard to refuse. Perhaps there will 
come another day when you will have to go 
to your friend and ask him to put his name on 
your paper. And yet there is very good 
authority for putting an article against going 
security into your business code, and making 
that article as unchangeable as the law of the 
Medes and Persians. 

In Prov. 11:15 there is a sentence worth 
framing and hanging on the wall of every 
counting-room in the land. It runs like this : 
1 ' He that is surety for a stranger shall smart 
for it ; and he that hateth suretyship is sure. " 
And in Prov. 22 : 26, we read : " Be not thou 
one of them that strike hands, or of them that 
are sureties for debts.' ' 

And yet if there were not this sound advice 
from the wisest book men have, experience 
would be enough to teach it. There are too 
many mournful instances of those who have 
worked hard and accumulated a competency, 
and then, in an evil hour having affixed their 
signature to some friend's obligation, they 
have lived to see their entire property swept 
away, and themselves reduced to the hard- 
ships of a penniless old age. 

4. Honor God in your business. This is 
the crowning maxim for the finest business 



20 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

success. Refuse to enter upon any business 
which dishonors God or hurts humanity. Let 
the profits be ever so large, it were far better 
to fail of a fortune than to lose your God. 
Prof. Finney tells of a man who came to him 
during a meeting at Edinburg, and said that 
he had accepted Christ as his Saviour and was 
ready to make a full consecration to God. 
' ' Suppose we go down on our knees and 
tell God that," said the evangelist. And so 
Finney prayed : ' ' O Lord, this man declares 
that he is prepared to take thee as his God, 
and to cast himself upon thy care now and 
forever. " The man responded with a hearty 
"Amen!" "O Lord, this man vows that 
he is ready to give his wife, family, and all 
their interests up to thee." Another hearty 
"Amen!" "O Lord, he says that he is 
willing to give thee his business, whatever it 
may be, and conduct it for thy glory." A 
profound silence followed this petition, and 
Mr. .Finney, surprised, asked, ' ' Why do you 
not say ' Amen ' now ? " The man answered, 
1 \ Because the Lord will not take my busi- 
ness. I am in the liquor trade." 

There are some kinds of business that are 
God-dishonoring. They cannot be conse- 
crated to God. They would best be aban- 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 21 

doned. Undoubtedly faith, strong faith, is 
required to take such a step as this, and yet 
God is pledged to care for those who trust 
him. He may try them, but he will not let 
them perish ; and even the trial of faith will 
be found at last to have been " precious. " 

It is said that when Nicholas Biddle was 
president of the bank of the United States, he 
wished a clerk in his employ to do some 
writing on the Sabbath. The young man re- 
fused and was dismissed. For what might be 
termed an " over-nice scruple of conscience, " 
this young man, with a mother dependent 
upon him, was thrown out of work. A few 
days later, Mr. Biddle was asked to nominate 
a cashier for another bank, and he named this 
young man ; and as a proof of his trustworthi- 
ness, said, ' ' You can trust him, for he would 
not work for me on Sunday." "Them that 
honor me, I will honor," 1 It is the word of 
God, and as surely as God lives and reigns, 
that word will be kept. 

It would also be well to let God have some 
share in the profits of your business. It is a 
good thing to have as partner one who never 
fails ; and God never fails. Set aside some 
part of your income, a tenth, or whatever 
amount you may decide upon, and let that 

l i Sam. 2 : 30, 



Z2 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

be God's portion, to be used for the honor 
of his cause. 

Ill 

And now having chosen his vocation in life, 
and determined the principles upon which it is 
to be followed, success depends largely on the 
young man himself. There are certain quali- 
fications, or traits, which the young man in 
business should possess. Possessing these, the 
apprentice becomes foreman, and the foreman 
proprietor ; the clerk rises to a place in the 
firm, and the office boy comes to have an 
office of his own. 

1. Self-reliance. Don't depend too much 
on your relatives. Do n't trust too much to 
good luck. Most depends on you, the man 
behind your business. It was John Fradley 
whose unvarying motto was, ' ' Self-depend- 
ence and self-reliance." He said, " My ob- 
servations through life satisfy me that at least 
nine tenths of those most successful in busi- 
ness, start in life without any reliance except 
upon their own heads and hands — hoe their 
own row from the jump." 

2. Honesty. It is better to be honest than 
rich. The men who give society and com- 
merce its stability are not the charlatans and 
pettifoggers and quacks and counterfeiters. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 23 

They are honest men. In writing to some 
young men, Charles Kingsley said : — 

"My dear boys, the human race may for all practical pur- 
poses, be divided into three parts : — 

1. Honest men, who intend to do right, and do it. 

2. Knaves, who mean to do wrong, and do it. 

3. Fools, who aim to do whichever is the pleasanter. This 
latter class may be subdivided thus : Black fools, who would 
rather do wrong, but dare not unless with the crowd ; white 
fools who would rather do right, but lack courage unless it is 
the fashion." 

Now, men who make history are not the 
knaves ; they are not the fools ; they are the 
honest men. All others are but flotsam and 
jetsam on the tides of time. 

If a young man wants to leave any worthy 
mark on his day and generation, he would 
best determine at the outset that he will live 
honestly, come what will. 

There will come a great many temptations 
to break over a resolve like this. There will 
be times when the lure of big profits at the 
expense of principle will be almost irresistible. 
You will say : ' ' I can quiet my conscience a 
little to-day. Other men would do it. Why 
should I be over-scrupulous ? Besides, this 
will never be discovered." He who listens 
to such a voice is loosing from his moorings, 
and will go drifting, he knows not where. 



24 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

If we will look at the matter from none 
other than the sordid, material standpoint, 
we would best be honest. Honesty pays in 
the long run. Out of ages of experience the 
proverb has come that ' ' honesty is the best 
policy. " 

3. Reliableness. Many a young man starts 
out well ; and friends are glad to lend a help- 
ing hand, and they bring the youth their 
patronage and custom, for no other reason 
than to encourage him in his first venture. 
But he grows careless. He neglects business 
for pleasure. He allows a ball or an excur- 
sion to consume hours that should have been 
given to business. Directly he finds his cus- 
tomers slipping away. They have found their 
young friend unreliable, and however much 
they might like to do so, they simply cannot 
afford to help him. Reliableness is a capital 
in itself. Keep your engagements. Be punc- 
tual. Be diligent. 

If the young man is to be reliable, he must 
not be dissipated. He must not keep late 
hours. It is all very fine to i i run with the 
boys," and have a "lark ;" but life's work is 
worth more than such rush-lights. 

The statement has been made repeatedly 
in public print that some of the government's 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 25 

clerks at Washington, are required, on ap- 
pointment, to pledge themselves to the fol- 
lowing : — 

i. That you will be a total abstinence man, 
never tasting of any ardent spirits, wine, or 
other intoxicating drinks. 

2. That you will never gamble, or play at 
chance games. 

3. That you will keep none but steady and 
respectable society. 

4. That you will always keep the Sabbath 
strictly, and attend public worship. And 
that you will be steady, industrious, persever- 
ing, and faithful to your business. 

It matters not for the point in hand, 
whether government clerks subscribe to such 
a pledge or not ; it goes without the saying 
that it is on such habits as these that reliabil- 
ity in business life depends. 

4. Energy. The young man in business 
must be energetic. It is a fast age. It has 
created and destroyed the marvels of the 
" White City." It is the age in which elec- 
tricity is fast superceding steam. Everything 
is a drive, a rush, and the competitions are 
endless and ceaseless. The day has gone by 
for the business man to rest on his oars. He 
will be passed if he does. It takes a mount- 



26 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

ain a long time to move. It were better for 
you to go to the mountain than wait for the 
mountain to come to you. If business does 
not come, hunt it, find it, have it. Be ener- 
getic. There are two classes of people that 
never amount to anything. One is composed 
of those who are always waiting for something 
to turn up — the Micawbers. The others are 
those who are continually concocting some 
bewildering scheme with millions in it, by 
which they hope to make a fortune with the 
stroke of a pen or the wave of a hand. 
These are the Col. Sellerses. Both the Mi- 
cawbers and the Col. Sellerses are idlers. 
They fritter time away. Their hands refuse 
to labor. They are foredoomed to failure. 
Work is the divine key to greatness. Genius 
is only the unlimited capacity for work. The 
world's great men have all been great toilers. 
Franklin, Spurgeon, Gladstone, — we stand 
amazed at the stupendous amount of work 
they performed. The world's men of genius 
have usually been those who "longed for a 
thing so strongly that for the sake of its 
attainment they conquered obstacles, lived 
down opposition, ignored discouragement, and 
through years of trial and obscurity moved 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 27 

steadily and energetically toward the fulfill- 
ment of a hope." 

5. Thoroughness. It is better to do one 
thing well than many indifferently. Concen- 
trate your powers on your work. Concen- 
trate your work that your powers may grasp 
it. No man can handle a pound of water in 
vapor, but condense it into liquid and the 
task is easy. As civilization advances, we are 
applying more and more the law of division of 
labor. One man gives his life to the diseases 
of the ear ; another to those of the eye. One 
mechanic touches one part of a bolt, one artisan 
spends his life on the part of a gold pen but 
little larger than a pin's point. When the 
field of human energy is so narrowed, expert - 
ness is developed. Workmen become more 
thorough, .and the product that satisfied the 
world a generation ago is now regarded as crude 
and unfinished. Hence, the very conditions 
of life make thoroughness essential to success. 

6. Courage. You must keep a stout heart, 
young man. You will have discouragements 
many and mighty. You will have " black 
Fridays.'' There will be times when the skies 
above you will be dense with cloud, and you 
can see nothing but foreclosure and ruin. 



28 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

Whether there be any financial panic in the 
big world outside or not, there will come days 
when it will be the worst sort of panic in 
your little corner. Then you need to hold up 
your head, and set your jaw like a vise, and 
go on. Be courageous and persevere. The 
tide is sure to turn if you can only hold out 
long enough. On a winter's morning, when 
eighteen inches of snow lay on the ground, a 
gentleman found a five-year old boy with a 
toy-shovel, at work in the snow. " What are 
you doing my little man ? " he asked. " Clean- 
ing off the pavement. " " But how in the 
world do you expect to get all this snow 
away ? " " By keeping at it, sir," chirped the 
lad. 

Ah, that 's the ring of the right coin. 
"Keeping at it," will conquer nine tenths of 
our difficulties. 

u For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 
The black minute's at end, 

And the elements rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 
Shall dwindle, shall blend, 

Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy, 
Then alight." 1 

7. Trustfulness. Finally, be trustful ; not 
trusting, but trustful. Trusting is your life 
turned toward man. Trustful is your life 

1 Robert Browning. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 29 

turned toward God. It were better not to 
do too much trusting. The credit business 
is a bad business. Pay as you go, is the 
safest rule for all classes. 

But you cannot be too trustful. Have faith 
in God for all the work of the six days, as 
well as for the grateful rest of the one day. 
Do a credit business with God, without limit. 

On the coat of arms of the Prince of Wales, 
there is a famous inscription, borrowed from 
a saintly and heroic life. After acknowledg- 
ing that he holds his title by the grace of 
God, there follows this line, * ' Whose I am, 
and whom I serve." That is a splendid motto 
for the young man in business, — "Whose I 
am." I belong to God in my business life. 
"Whom I serve," — I must serve God in my 
business life. 

Self-reliant, honest, reliable, energetic, thor- 
ough, courageous, trustful, — these qualifica- 
tions make a peerless business man. 

I began with self-reliance, dependence on 
self, and I close with trustfulness, dependence 
on God. They seem to contradict, but like the 
lines on the old Corinthian columns, if carried 
high enough, they will meet somewhere above. 
Work as if everything depended on yourself 
and trust as if everything depended on your 



30 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

God, and some day it will appear that your 
work and your trust were both parts of the 
same great life-throb. 

When Jesus was upon the earth, he said, 
"I must be about my Father's business." 
And there is a sense in which you and I may 
reverently make those words our own. As 
we plan and toil and invest and expend and 
accumulate in our secular activity, all should 
be sanctified and suffused with the thought 
that we are about our heavenly Father's busi- 
ness. The spiritual and the secular should 
never be so divorced that God absorbs one 
and is excluded from the other. 

It was a beautiful custom which our ances- 
tors followed of raising a cross in the midst of 
the market-place, as if they would say that 
in all their dealings with one another, men 
should be controlled by the teachings and ex- 
ample of the life that was given on the cross 
for the redemption of the world. 

Young men, it is as we live thus that we 
not only accumulate a property on earth, but 
likewise lay up for ourselves treasures in 
heaven, where moth and rust do not corrupt 
and where thieves break not through nor 
steal. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS. 31 

And when at last there is no more the rush 
of trade and the bustle of toil, when shop and 
office and stock exchange are all behind us, 
and the last great note is falling due, we shall 
not be confounded ; for we shall have the 
wherewithal to meet its obligations. 

"Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand 
before kings ; he shall not stand before obscure men." 

Seest thou a man diligent in his business — 
diligent with an activity inspired of heaven 
and resourceful as faith, — he shall stand be- 
fore the King of kings. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 

" There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, . . . and both 
Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 
John 2 : i, 2. 

The young man in society, — that means 
the young man off duty and on pleasure bent, 
the young man on dress parade. Man is a 
gregarious animal. He goes in nations and 
tribes and kindreds and families and sets and 
clubs and cliques and fraternities and colonies 
and associations and guilds and leagues and 
parties. 

The gregarious instinct asserts itself among 
the fishes of the sea, and we have shoals. 
The gregarious instinct asserts itself among 
the insects of the air, and we have swarms. 
The gregarious instinct asserts itself among 
the cattle in the fields and the sheep on the 
hillsides, and we have droves and herds and 
flocks. The gregarious instinct asserts itself 
in humanity, and we have Society. 
[32] 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 33 

In its broadest meaning, society is the 
union of human beings around some general 
interest ; and so we may have a society that 
is literary or political or musical or ecclesias- 
tical. But there is a narrower and more 
technical meaning to the word, when we use 
it to denote the intermingling of human 
beings in domestic life for purposes of recrea- 
tion and hospitality. It is in this narrower 
sense that the word is used in this chapter. 

In this sense society is easy enough to de- 
fine, but rather difficult to determine. It is 
so diverse. It is a conglomerate of the most 
heterogeneous elements. Society is split into 
innumerable sets and cliques, each claiming to 
be the most select, and each arrogating to it- 
self the name ' ' Society. " Society does a 
great many foolish things. It is envious and 
jealous and proud, and often mean. It wor- 
ships a great many false gods. One little set 
falls down before the false god of wealth, and 
with them society depends on rich entertain- 
ments and the lavish expenditure of money. 
Another little set bows down before the false 
god of lineage and birth, and with them so- 
ciety is restricted to the first families. Still 
another little set falls on its face before the 
false god of learning, and with them society 
3 



34 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

consists of the literati. And so the divisions 
are endless and the standards petty. After 
all, it is the point of view that creates much 
of this. Nearly everything is relative in so- 
ciety. One never falls so low in the social 
scale, but there is somebody below him, or at 
any rate, somebody whom he thinks below 
him, and that amounts to pretty much the 
same thing. Man never rises so high in the 
social scale, 'but he finds somebody beyond 
him, or at any rate somebody who thinks 
himself beyond him. 

Many of these social distinctions are foolish, 
some are shameful, some are sinful ; but as 
long as people have the right to choose their 
associates, these distinctions will exist. So 
long as there are differences of culture and 
breeding, and so long as human beings cluster 
about that « which is mutually congenial, so 
long will society have its "sets." Besides 
it may be gravely questioned whether social 
anarchy or communism is desirable, even if it 
were possible. 

Society is the intermingling of people, and 
that is its crown. We leave our trade, our 
bills of lading, our briefs and prescription 
tablets, our tools and work-baskets — our 
things behind us, and for a little while we 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 35 

are concerned with people. That cannot but 
be beneficial. We grasp each other by the 
hand and exchange the salutations of friend- 
ship. We look into each other's faces, and 
chat about a dozen trivial insignificances. 
But we are studying humanity. Our hands 
are free for awhile, from sordid and material 
things, and while society may not always be 
a little paradise, it has joys and blessings 
which we cannot surrender. 

I. 

Therefore the young man should go into 
society. He needs all that it can give him. 
He needs the relaxation and recuperation 
which he will find there. He needs now and 
then to get away from the grind and dull care 
of work, and throw off his burdens amid the 
genial delights and merriment of social life. 
You do not keep your violin or guitar tightly 
strung all the time. When they have done 
their service, you loosen the chords. Lute 
strings are all the sweeter for being now and 
then unstrung ; and the lute strings of a 
human life are all the sweeter for being occa- 
sionally relaxed. Life regains its elasticity 
and the heart strings, a sweeter song of 
delight. 



36 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

The young man needs to go into society 
because of its refining influences. If he shuts 
himself up in solitude, and leads a life apart 
from his fellows, he will almost inevitably 
grow awkward, rude, and bearish. There is a 
refinement of feeling, a polish of manner, a 
delicacy and ease which men never acquire 
save in the society of ladies. Yea, there is a 
purity of heart, a lofty ideal of virtue thus in- 
spired which will be worth not a little to a 
young man in the hour of temptation. 

Some one has said that women are the 
poetry of life, just as the stars are the poetry 
of the heavens. " Clear, light-giving, har- 
monious, — they are the terrestrial planets that 
rule the destinies of mankind." 1 

It is a hundred times better to be in some 
home, in the society of pure-minded girl- 
hood, than to imitate many of the young men 
in our cities who spend their evenings at the 
club or on the street corners, or around the 
pool-table. 

Society is a prevention. It is a grateful 
recreation. Let the young man go into so- 
ciety. In this opinion, we have the endorse- 
ment of Jesus Christ. Let us glance for a 
moment at one of the bright scenes in his 
gracious ministry. There was to be a mar- 

1 Hargrave. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 37 

riage at Cana of Galilee. Up there among 
the hills somebody's troth was to be plighted. 
A Galilean youth had wooed and won a Jew- 
ish maiden's heart, and the drama of love, as 
old as Eden, and as fresh and fascinating to- 
day as ever, was to be played again up there 
in that quiet village of the hills. The invita- 
tions to the marriage had been sent out, and 
they had gone so far as Nazareth, and Jesus 
and his disciples were among the invited 
guests. 

The blessed Lord was gracious enough to 
accept that invitation. It was his first public 
appearance after his baptism. He mingled 
in the festivities of that social event, and I 
do not think that his presence was a cloud at 
the feast. I do not think the merriment was 
checked, nor the laughter less glad, nor the 
light in the eye less bright, nor the color in 
the cheek less glowing, because Jesus was 
there. I am inclined to think that guest 
made the joy and gladness at Cana all the 
more intense for his presence. 

While the feast was at its height, the wine 
ran low, and Mary, who was probably a rela- 
tive of either the bride or the bridegroom, in 
her perplexity came to Jesus and told him the 
dilemma. Then Jesus turned the water into 



38 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

wine, and the feast went on. It was our 
Lord's first miracle. There are those who 
are perplexed by this, and some who find here 
a defense of wine-drinking and an excuse for 
dissipation. If Jesus made wine at Cana for 
the revellers at a Jewish wedding, then surely 
wine-drinking cannot be wrong to-day. Such 
is the argument. It is not my purpose to dis- 
cuss this matter here. It is enough to say 
that the conditions surrounding the use of 
alcoholic drinks then were totally different 
from what they are now. There was not a 
saloon on every street corner in Cana of 
Galilee. The liquid damnation that is dealt 
out in grog-shops now, was not an article of 
commerce then. Wines were pure. Liquors 
were few. The conditions have completely 
changed. But why argue the matter ? Jesus 
turned the water into wine. Can't we trust 
him ? 

But this is only a digression. The incident 
is cited to show Christ's approval of social 
recreations. The first public appearance of 
Jesus, after he had entered upon his ministry 
for the world's redemption, was at a social 
gathering. The first miracle he ever per- 
formed was worked that the festivities of that 
social gathering might continue. And the 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 39 

book that records the incident is the most 
profoundly spiritual of the four Gospels. It 
is in John's Gospel that we find the interview 
with Nicodemus, where Christ states the mys- 
tery of the new birth. It is in the same book 
that we have our Lord's intercessory prayer. 
It is this book which opens with those words 
the full meaning of which we have never yet 
fathomed : " In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God. " John reaches the topmost alti- 
tudes of religious experience, and drops a 
plummet into its profoundest depths. He is 
almost a mystic. And yet it is by this evan- 
gelist, and by him only, that the miracle at 
Cana is recorded. What does that mean ? It 
is John's way of telling us that there can be 
no contradiction between the joys and merry 
glad-heartedness of social life and the pro- 
foundest spirituality and most devout piety. 
Cana was not out of harmony with Calvary. 
No, no ! there is nothing in the religion of 
Christ to drive away the sunshine from human 
life. It is a religion of joy and smiles. It is 
no evidence of piety to wear a long face and 
talk in funeral tones, and consign all of the 
innocent recreations of life to the world, the 
flesh, and the devil. The religion that sends 



40 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

men out of the world into monasteries and 
celibacy is not the religion Christ brought into 
the world. The piety that sends women into 
the solitude of nunneries and convents lacks 
utterly the endorsement of heaven. Christ's 
prayer was not that his people might be taken 
out of the world, but that they might be kept 
from the evil that is in the world. And that 
this social proclivity of human nature might 
be satisfied with the best food, Christ organ- 
ized his church in the world. Perhaps if the 
church were truer to her social mission, less 
stiff and less frosted over with a false dignity, 
more genial, more aglow with brotherly kind- 
ness, there would -be fewer secret orders and 
outside fraternities, through which men, hun- 
gry for comradeship, are reaching for the 
satisfying of the social instinct. 

II. 

However, young gentlemen, the question 
before us is not speculative but practical. 
Theoretically society will help you ; but we 
face a condition and not a theory. Society is 
organized. It is an institution in human life 
to-day. It has its laws and customs and 
practices. Will it help you to go into this 
• ' society " ? Can you participate therein and 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 41 

maintain your integrity ? Is a young man a 
better man for being a ' \ society man, " as we 
understand that phrase now ? — Yes, and no. 
Society as conducted at present has some ad- 
vantages and not a few drawbacks. Let us 
note some of its products, and let us be fair 
and dispassionate. It is so easy when one 
begins to discuss the sins of society to rant, 
and say sharp, cutting things, merely for the 
sake of being witty. Nevertheless, ' i by their 
fruit ye shall know them. " Here are some of 
the unfortunate products of society life. 

i. A young man who has reached old age 
before he reaches his majority. He is the 
blase young man. He knows everything, and 
is superior thereto. He has tried and tasted 
all the world can offer, and turned wearily 
away. He talks with a mushy articulation 
and criticises everything. He is utterly lack- 
ing in enthusiasm and life. He enjoys abso- 
lutely nothing, and punctuates his idiotic 
remarks with yawns. He never laughs heart- 
ily. It would be ill-bred to do so. He is 
never demonstrative : he might burst a blood 
vessel, or crease his coat. There is very lit- 
tle of the man about this blase youth, this 
patriarch of eighteen summers. He is lifeless 
and insipid. He has melted down into a 



42 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

polyp, a boneless, flabby mollusk. He could 
be lost out of the world and never missed. 
He is not very common, but he is too com- 
mon. What made him ? Who is responsible 
for his creation ? The home did not produce 
him. The state did not produce him. The 
church did not produce him. He is the off- 
spring of an emasculated society. 

2. The dishonest young man. It requires a 
certain amount of money to go into modern so- 
ciety. There must be a decent wardrobe, 
and then there are tickets to the ball, to the 
theater, carriage hire, presents, excursions, 
and a score of other things that are a constant 
drain upon the purse. Few young men re- 
ceive large salaries, and if they are to keep 
up appearances in society, they will often 
find the month's wages gone before the 
month is well begun. What is the result ? 
The young man must borrow. Nowhere is 
pride so injurious as here. Nowhere is hu- 
miliation so galling. So the young man bor- 
rows from his friends, and when this resource 
is gone, what shall he do ? Pride has the whip. 
The demands of society are remorseless. 
He borrows from his employer on the sly. A 
day comes when he can no longer return what 
he has borrowed. He is a thief ! His honor 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 43 

is gone. You say he ought to have been 
braver, he ought to have resisted temptation. 
Yes ; but it is too late now, and his character 
is branded with a mark which like Cain's can 
never be washed out. 

3. The dissipated young man. How could 
it be otherwise, so long as wine is "the 
proper thing" at fashionable social entertain- 
ments, and the punch bowl crowns the festal 
board ? Not all the drunkards are made by 
the saloon. There are multitudes of young 
men who never would have learned to drink, 
had it been necessary for them to learn at the 
groggery. But society makes wine-drinking 
decent. It glosses the vice with respectability. 
And wine-drinking youths make whisky-drink- 
ing men. Wine-drinking is not a temperance 
measure. That fallacy has long since been 
exploded ; and many a young man has learned 
to his sorrow that the wine which made the 
ball so merry and his wit so glib, had hell in 
its dregs. 

4. In addition to these products, modern 
society is justly chargeable with diminishing 
reverence for the marriage relation. Flirta- 
tion is one of the fine arts of society life. 
Engagements that ought to be almost as sa- 
cred as the marriage vow are lightly made 



44 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

and as lightly broken. Many an unfortunate 
marriage had only social expediency for its in- 
spiration. Divorces are alarmingly frequent. 
Of course, society is not to blame for all of 
them ; but it is patent that there would be 
fewer cases in the divorce courts, if men and 
women would learn that for a happy marriage 
there must be compatibility of temperament, 
mutual respect, and congeniality, yea, some- 
thing of that attachment between husband 
and wife, which our heavenly Father had in 
mind when he said : * ' Therefore shall a man 
leave his father and his mother, and shall 
cleave unto his wife ; and they shall be one 
flesh." 1 

Enough has been said to show that our 
social life is not all that should be desired. 
I might mention its formality, its hypocrisy, 
its false standards, its mad jealousy to out- 
shine a rival, its suspicions, its extravagance, 
its wastefulness ; but this is enough. I have 
shown when its evil effects becloud the young 
man's horizon ; and enough has been said to 
show that the young man would best first sit 
down and count the cost. 

Can you afford to go into society ? Will 
your income stand the strain ? Will impend- 
ing humiliation and a false pride tempt you 

1 Gen. 2 : 24. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 45 

to be dishonest ? Can you afford it from a 
business standpoint ? You are just starting 
out upon your business career. Success de- 
mands closeness of application. It requires 
diligence. Will the dissipation incident to 
social recreations absorb time and energies 
that your business should have ? If so, you 
would best let society languish and attend to 
business. 

Can you afford it morally ? Can you be a 
Christian and indulge in all of the excesses 
and frivolities of society ? If not, which will 
you give up, your soul or society ? As a mat- 
ter of fact, there are young men who are say- 
ing, ' ' We will have a good time. We will 
dance and drink and be merry. Religion is 
prosy. We will attend to it later on." They 
remind me of an old inebriate who suffered 
from inflamed eyes, and who went to his 
physician and asked to be cured. After an 
examination, the physician said : i i My friend, 
you will have to give up drink, or give up 
your eyes." He reflected a moment, and re- 
plied, ' ' Then farewell, eyes." 

There are young men who know that the 
issue is plainly drawn between the salvation 
of their souls and the excesses and dissipa- 
tions of a debauched society, and they are 



46 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

deliberately saying that their souls may go. 
What a bargain ! You are as foolish as Esau 
who sold his birthright for a beggarly mess of 
pottage. 

III. 

If society, as at present constituted, is not 
what we wish and need, what shall we do ? 
Throw it overboard ? That would be im- 
praticable and impossible, even if it were de- 
sirable. Young people, especially, must have 
some sort of amusement. If innocent and 
helpful amusements are not furnished, hurtful 
ones will be found. It is a grave dilemma 
which confronts many a young man of high 
ideals. He knows if he refuses to participate 
in certain social recreations, he will suffer 
social ostracism. He is averse to that, and 
probably just as averse to countenancing and 
endorsing what his conscience condemns. 

Is there any way out of this dilemma ? 
Well, society needs to be saved. It has two 
grave defects. It needs more brains, and 
more heart. I would not be misunderstood. 
I do not say that the individuals who make up 
society are lacking in either of these respects, 
for they are not. Some of the cleverest and 
kindest people in the world are what are 
called "society people. " And society can be 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY, 47 

kind after a fashion. It will pay ten dollars 
for tickets to a charity ball, and dance until 
three o'clock in the morning, and have a 
glorious time for the relief of some hospital or 
orphan asylum. 

When I affirm that society needs more 
brains and more heart, I am not speaking of 
individuals but of the institution, and that this 
is not a false charge will appear from a little 
reflection. 

i. Society needs more brains. What are 
its chief amusements ? — Dancing and card 
playing. Suppose some lady were to deter- 
mine to give an evening party, and were to 
announce to her friends that there would be 
no wine, many would look at her with mild 
amazement. Suppose, in addition, she were 
to announce that there would be neither pro- 
gressive euchre nor whist ; they would think 
she was losing her mind. And suppose that, 
in addition to this, she were to declare that 
there would be no dancing, they would hold 
up their hands in horror, and pronounce the 
whole affair foredoomed to utter failure. No 
wine ! no whist ! no dancing ! Why how on 
earth are people to amuse themselves ? 

Understand I am not arguing the moral 
phase of the amusements under consideration. 



48 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

That is another question, and one on which 
good people hold diverse views. But I do 
contend that immortal beings, created in 
God's image, and endowed with thought, are 
capable of higher things when they come to- 
gether for social fellowship ; and society will 
never be what is needed, so long as it rests on 
so frivolous a foundation. 

2. Society needs more heart. It needs 
more consideration for others. It needs more 
humanity. The question which is oftenest 
asked is not whether a thing is right, nor 
whether it is kind, nor whether it is generous, 
but, Is it good form ? The more exclusive it 
is, the more genteel it thinks itself to be. Its 
greatest ambition is not to encourage and help, 
but to dazzle and overwhelm. It glories in 
making an " impression. " It squanders large 
sums of money in giving lavish entertainments 
that minister to false pride and selfish vanity ; 
and it casts its mites and farthings to the 
poor. O there must be something wrong 
with that society which beats its dress-maker 
down to starvation wages, and spends an 
amount equal to her earnings for a whole, 
long year, on the flowers for a single even- 
ing's pleasure. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY, 49 

Society needs more heart. It needs to 
have more of the spirit of that little girl, 
whom Dr. Guthrie met one morning in the 
Highlands. She was carrying in her arms a 
little boy almost as large as herself, and in 
his kindliness of heart, the good doctor said : 
' ' Let me help you, my lass. The load is too 
heavy for your little arms." " O no," she 
answered with a smile, " he 's my brother, 
sir." She thought that it was impossible for 
a brother to be a burden. When we feel to- 
ward each other like that, society will not be 
so heartless. When we would rather share 
each other's burdens, than compete with each 
other's extravagances, society will be better. 

I speak for a society of more heart and 
more brain, where we shall think more of the 
graces of the soul than of the body ; where 
we shall judge a man by what he is rather 
than by what he has acquired ; where we 
shall think more of people and less of mere 
things. 

And this chapter will have answered its 
purpose if it leads some of the young men 
who read it, to make a manly contribution to 
the society in which they move, by attempt- 
ing to realize these high ideals in themselves. 
4 



50 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

IV. 

That you may, and that you may get the 
good out of society and avoid the bad, will 
you let me make the following suggestions for 
your personal conduct : — 

i. Remember that society is recreation. It 
is not business. Whoever follows it for a 
business will come to grief. He is reducing 
himself to a cipher. One of the most disgust- 
ing spectacles is that of a young man who 
1 ' cuts a swell, " and "poses as a star in the 
social world, " but can do nothing more. He 
is not a man. He is only a monkey ; and the 
woman who marries him will have to support 
him. Do n't be everlastingly asking to be 
amused. That is the sign of a baby mind, 
and you ought not to tarry in your babyhood 
forever. After all, life is earnest. We all 
must have playtime come 'round now and 
then, but we must not turn life into playtime. 
" Life is real, life is earnest," and only those 
who so regard it, make life a great success. 

2. Remember that in society you are influ- 
encing others and being influenced yourself . 
It will be hard, at times, to face ridicule, and 
have the courage of your convictions. But 
the crowd follows, at last, the man who does 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 51 

this. Let no influence from your life lead a 
friend astray. 

Pick your associates. They will influence 
you. It is an old proverb, "Tell me your 
company, and I'll tell you yourself. " "Who 
runs with wolves will learn to howl." With- 
out having any silly pride, without thinking 
yourself better than others, be select. l ' Evil 
communications corrupt good manners." 1 

3. Have a lofty ideal of what makes a gen- 
tleman, and endeavor under all circum- 
stances to realize that ideaL Bear in mind 
that no amount of polish and external grace 
can atone for a mean spirit within. What is 
a gentleman ? — He is vastly more than a 
creature arrayed in a full-dress suit and broad 
expanse of spotless shirt front, curving con- 
stantly a supple spinal column, and with a 
tongue glib enough to rattle off a string of im- 
poverished common-places. The true spirit 
of a gentleman is that of kind and thoughtful 
consideration for others. Without this you 
can never have a gentleman. With it you 
have a gentleman, whether or not he possess 
the graces of the drawing room, and be an 
adept in all of the details of polite etiquette. 

There is an old story told of General Lee. 
He was once on his way to Richmond, and was 
*i Cor. 15 133. 



52 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

seated in the extreme end of a railroad coach, 
every seat of which was occupied. At one 
of the stations, an aged woman of humble 
appearance entered the car, carrying a large 
basket on her arm. She walked down the 
entire length of the aisle, and not a man of- 
fered her a seat. When she was opposite the 
place where General Lee was sitting, he 
promptly arose and said, ' ' Madam, take this 
seat." Instantly a score of men were on 
their feet, and a chorus of voices said, ' * Gen- 
eral, have my seat." The hero of the Con- 
federacy replied, * ' No, gentlemen. If there 
was no seat for this old lady, there can be 
none for me." It was not long before the car 
was almost empty. It was too warm to be 
comfortable. General Lee sounded the key- 
note of a true gentleman. It is unselfishness. 
It is consideration for others. 

The correspondents of the New York Sun 
once attempted to give a definition to the 
word "gentleman," and some of these were 
so good as to be worthy of preservation : — 

U A gentleman is a knight whose armor is honesty, and 
sword courtesy." 

"A gentleman is a man who has pride without vanity, 
courage without bravado, and who is innately considerate of 
the feelings of others." 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 53 

" A gentleman is fearful of a wrong, zealous of a right, 
true to himself, chivalrous to women, respectful to men, pre- 
serving always a quiet, manly bearing, all the time unosten- 
tatiously. ,, 

"A gentleman is one who would rather suffer himself 
than inflict suffering upon others, even upon dumb animals ; 
who loves his country and his fellow-men ; who is courtly 
toward women, modest in suggesting his own rights to others ; 
who minds his own business, and thinks no evil of any living 
thing." 

Perhaps we can find no better definition 
than the word itself. A gentleman is a gen- 
tle, manly man. Let the young man in soci- 
ety always be a gentle, manly man. 

Be gentle. Some one has said that gentle- 
ness is love in society. "It is love holding 
intercourse with those around it. It is that 
cordiality of aspect and that soul of speech, 
which assures us that kind and earnest hearts 
may still be met with here below. It is that 
quiet influence, which, like the scented flame 
of an alabaster lamp, fills many a home with 
light and warmth and fragrance. It is the 
carpet, soft and deep, which whilst it diffuses 
a look of ample comfort, deadens many a 
creaking sound. ... It is the pillow on 
which sickness lays its head and forgets half 
its misery, and to which death comes in a 
balmier dream. It is considerateness. It is 
tenderness of feeling. It is warmth of affec- 



54 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

tion. It is promptitude of sympathy. It is 
love in all its depths and all its delicacy." * 

Be gentle. This does not mean that you 
are to surrender your independence. Gentle- 
ness is not effeminacy. It is not softness, 
mushiness. It consists of strength ; and so be 
manly also. Do n't degenerate into a fop. 
Do n't allow custom and formality to dry up 
all the juices of your individuality. Be a 
vigorous, courageous, outspoken, self-reliant 
man. You can never make a gentleman un- 
less you have a man to make him out of. 

4. Let all kinds of alcoholic drinks severely 
alone. Be abstemious. It were safer to be 
a total abstainer. This will subject you to a 
certain amount of ridicule, from small souls ; 
but a man won't mind this. Learn to say, 
" No." The young man whom society needs, 
is the man with the courage of his convic- 
tions, who would rather be true to himself 
than be a "Beau Brummel ; " who will con- 
sent to be singular, provided he is right. 
Make this sort of contribution to society and 
you will bless society and society will bless 
you. 

We are hastening on, young men, to the 
greatest social event of all the seasons, and of 
all the ages. There was a marriage at Cana 

J Dr. J. Hamilton, 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 55 

of Galilee, and Jesus was there ; but there is 
to be another marriage feast that will eclipse 
the one at Cana. It is the ' ' Marriage Supper 
of the Lamb," and He who was guest at Cana 
will be host here. The joys and delights of 
this feast will be without alloy. The gladness 
will be sanctified. Good-will and brotherly- 
kindness will be supreme. It will be heaven 
to be there. And the invitations to this mar- 
riage feast have been sent out. They have 
reached even us, "And the Spirit and the 
bride say, Come." Will you be there? It 
will not matter much if our social life here has 
been humble and barren, if only we shall 
stand at last in the glorious beauty of that 
peerless feast. 

Should not our social gatherings here be, in 
some sense, preparations for that great, glad 
event ? That they may be, He who is to be 
the Bridegroom there, must at least be a guest 
here. I mean that society must be brought 
into harmony with the life and will of Jesus 
Christ. 

Society changes. It is barbarous, and be- 
comes civilized. It is illiterate, and becomes 
scientific. It is rude, and becomes the patron 
of art and letters. But this does not make it 
better. Society needs to be regenerated. It 



56 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

needs to be Christianized. There lies its only 
hope. Jesus has laid down the law by which 
alone society can rise to something higher. 
' ' Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you, do ye even so to them. nl 

Let us send for the divine Guest from 
Nazareth. Let us see his gracious form in 
our homes, around our firesides. Let us 
catch upon our faces the beauty of his unself- 
ishness. Let our festivities be sweetened and 
suffused with Christian joy. Then will social 
life give all that the human heart hungers for ; 
and we shall find how the Christ-guest can do, 
over and over again, for us, just what he did 
at Cana's marriage-feast — the water shall be 
changed to wine. 

"Dear Friend, whose presence in the house, 
Whose gracious words benign, 
Could once at Cana's wedding feast, 
Change water into wine. 

" Come, visit us ! and when dull work 
Grows weary, line on line, 
Revive our souls, and let us see 
Life's water turned to wine. 

" Gay mirth shall deepen into joy, 
Earth's hopes grow half divine, 
When Jesus visits us to make 
Life's water glow as wine. 

1 Matt. 7 : 12. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY. 57 

"The social talk, the evening fire, 
The homely household shrine, 
Grow bright with angel visits when 
The Lord pours out the wine. 

" For when self-seeking turns to love, 
Not knowing mine nor thine, 
The miracle again is wrought, 
And water turned to wine." 1 

!J. F. Clarke. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 
" Our citizenship is in heaven." Phil, j: 20. 

The young man in politics ! What do we 
mean by that ? Is it the young man in the 
defilement and corruption of a degenerate and 
polluted politics that worships no god but the 
party ? Is it the young man lending himself 
to what passes nowadays under the name of 
" practical politics"? If so, the advice of 
this chapter might be summed up in a single 
sentence. Let the young man steer clear of 
politics. Let him shun carefully this ' ' black 
hole of Calcutta." 

But the word "politics" has a nobler mean- 
ing. It is our attitude to the State. It is 
our activity in civil affairs. Let it therefore 
stand, not for the ward meeting, nor the 
packed convention, nor the fraudulent ballot ; 
but let it stand for citizenship. 

The young man has a duty to perform in 
the sphere of business. Let him discharge it 
[58] 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 59 

in the fear of God. The young man has a 
part to play in social life. Let it be dis- 
charged in the spirit of Jesus. The young 
man owes a duty to the State. Let him pay it 
as a citizen of Christ's kingdom. The divine 
teaching for this side of your life, you can 
find, young man, in the opening clause of the 
twentieth verse of the third chapter of Philip- 
pians. " Our conversation is in heaven." 
The word translated " conversation, " means 
conversation, but that is its least frequent 
meaning. It also means " citizenship, " and 
this is the rendering that is given in the Re- 
vised Version. The word also means ' ' com- 
monwealth," but we have not quite gotten to 
its heart yet. The Greek word is iroMrevpd, 
and is the very root from which comes our 
English word, "politics." So that we might 
read it thus : " Our politics is in heaven." 

There are two great truths voiced in that 
line of scripture : — 

1 . We should get the guiding principles of 
our politics from heaven. 

2. Our politics, our citizenship \ should be 
in heaven. 

Most of what I want to say to you in this 
chapter will fall under the first of these propo- 
sitions. 



60 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 



The church and politics ! Whenever those 
two come within arm's reach of each other, a 
great many good people have the cold shivers. 
They believe that the church and politics 
ought never to touch. They are utterly and 
forever irreconcilable. 

We have settled it once for all, in America 
at any rate, that the church and the state 
must be separate. We will not brook any 
interference of the civil power with our relig- 
ious life ; and the instant any ecclesiastic 
attempts to control our legislation, American 
citizenship stands up and thunders, * ' Hands 
off. " In this we are undoubtedly right. 

For the state to usurp the functions of the 
church would be disastrous. King Uzziah had 
a little prosperity ; that inflated him and he 
determined to try his hand at the priesthood. 
So he went into the temple and tried to usurp 
the functions of the priests, and God smote 
him with leprosy. ' ' And Uzziah the king 
was a leper unto the day of his death." 1 It 
is a picture of what takes place whenever the 
state encroaches upon the church. It loses its 
health, it becomes corrupt and impure. It 

1 2 Chron. 26 : 21. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 61 

ceases to be a blessing to the people for whose 
peace and prosperity it was created. 

On the other hand, for the church to usurp 
the functions of the state would be equally 
disastrous. In his Apocalyptic vision, St. 
John saw a great star fall from heaven, 
dimmed and burning with the dull blaze of a 
lamp. Falling upon the rivers and fountains, 
they were embittered and became as worm- 
wood, and many men drinking thereof, died. 
" And the name of the star is called worm- 
wood." 1 

The wormwood star of the Apocalypse is a 
picture of the church falling from its high 
spiritual sphere, where God had placed it to 
shine as a luminary ; and intermeddling with 
the affairs of human government, it is changed 
from a blessing into a curse. We cannot 
legislate men into the kingdom of God. After 
we have passed all the moral legislation that 
reforrtiers suggest, there remains as much 
need as ever for the saving blood of Jesus 
Christ, and the regenerating work of the Holy 
Ghost. We are daft sometimes over the en- 
actment of a moral statute, and grow impatient 
with the church for failing to take sides in a 
political contest when a moral issue is in- 

!Rev. 8: II. 



62 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

volved, forgetting that the instant the church 
substitutes secular for spiritual power, she 
becomes a fallen orb and blights rather than 
blesses human society. The church is a bul- 
wark to good government so long as it has 
nothing to do directly with government, but 
the moment it attempts to influence and con- 
trol legislation, it is imbued with the worldly 
spirit, and growing intolerant and grossly ma- 
terial, is shorn of its power. 

Therefore let our citizenship ever stand for 
the absolute separation of church and state. 
The pope at Rome may, if he pleases, dictate 
to good Catholics in matters of religion, but 
good Catholics who are true American citi- 
zens, will join with good Protestants in pro- 
testing against all interference in the affairs 
of state. 

And yet this is very far from saying that 
citizenship should be godless. Our ideas on 
this subject are often obscured because we do 
not make sharp distinctions. 

The church is an institution, an organiza- 
tion ; and the state is an organization. As 
organizations, they are not to interfere with 
each other. A threshing machine and a loco- 
motive cannot occupy the same ground. If 
they come together, there will be a wreck. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 63 

These two organizations, the one ecclesiastical 
and the other civil, cannot collide without 
damage to both. 

On the other hand, religion is a life and 
citizenship is a life. Indeed they are just 
different phases of the experience of one and 
the self-same individual. Religion is the 
man's life toward God, and citizenship is the 
same man's life toward the state. Therefore 
religion and citizenship not only ought not to 
be, but cannot be divorced. Our religion 
ought to influence our citizenship, and will, 
if we have much religion. Our citizenship 
can influence our religion, and does whether 
we admit it or not. 

That there must be some common meeting 
place for the civil and religious is evident 
from a great many considerations. God holds 
governments responsible. ' ' The wages of sin 
is death," is a law for a nation no less than 
for individuals. It is the duty of the govern- 
ment to protect the rights and promote the 
welfare of its subjects. This it can only do 
by establishing truth and maintaining equity. 
Obedience to law is grounded ultimately on 
faith in some supreme being ; so that the 
very life of government and all its beneficent 
mission rest at last upon the religious instinct. 



64 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

To say that a nation must be godless to 
keep from being sectarian is only to utter a 
fallacy. The Sabbath is not a sectarian day. 
The Bible is not a sectarian book. The Lord 
Jesus Christ is not a sectarian Saviour. The 
state can be Christian without being Presby- 
terian, Methodist, Baptist, or Episcopalian. 
The State can be religious without being 
Protestant or Roman Catholic. To hold that 
a government cannot find the true religion, 
and must therefore reject all, is only to make 
infidelity the religion of the state. While the 
machinery of government cannot accept 
Christ, the rulers can, and good rulers are the 
ministers of God. ' i Rulers are not a terror 
to good works but to the evil." 1 

They asked Jesus: "Is it lawful to give 
tribute unto Caesar, or not ? " 2 They hoped 
to entrap him. If he said, * ' Yes, " he would 
be false to the Jewish Church. If he said, 
" No," he would be false to the Roman gov- 
ernment. He extricated himself with that 
matchless answer : ' ' Render unto Caesar the 
things which are Caesar's, and unto God the 
things which are God's." Both duties were 
binding, and they were serving God in dis- 
charging their obligations to the Roman gov- 

1 Rom. 13 : 3. 2 Matt. 22 : 17. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 65 

ernment no less than when performing their 
vows to the Jewish church. Yes, the civil and 
the spiritual are to touch and intermingle, but 
not through the state and church, not through 
organizations. They are to find each other 
inside the life of the individual. Citizenship 
is to be suffused, controlled, crowned by relig- 
ion. The guiding principles of our politics are 
to be gotten from heaven. We are to serve 

THE STATE IN THE FEAR OF ALMIGHTY GOD. 

One of the great needs of the time is to 
bring civil life under the sway of an enlight- 
ened Christian conscience. In the reaction 
against the union of church and state, the 
pendulum has swung too far. Political life 
will never be reformed until it is regenerated. 
God must touch it through the citizenship of 
men who have been closeted with Jesus 
Christ, and who serve their country through 
faith in him. 

May I beg the young men who read this to 
rise above the domination of party pride, to 
emancipate themselves from the bondage of 
partisanship ; and to consider their citizen- 
ship, not in the light of their allegiance to 
any political party whatsoever, but in the 
light of their allegiance to the King of kings, 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 
5 



66 



THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE, 



American citizenship is a privilege. God 
in a peculiar manner has in these last times, 
raised up our nation, and given it a pre- 
eminent place among the peoples of the 
earth. Its resources are exhaustless, its po- 
sition is strategic. The Anglo-Saxon race is 
the dominant race. Within the last century, 
the English-speaking people have stepped 
from the fifth up to the first place among the 
civilized nations. Dr. Josiah Strong gives us 

this table i 1 — 

1801. 



Rank 



Language 



French. . . . 
Russian. . . 
German. , . 
Spanish. . . 
English . . . 
Italian. . . . 
Portuguese 



Number 
Spoken by 



31,450,000 
30,770,000 
30,320,000 
26,190,000 
20,520,000 
15,070,000 
7,480,000 



Per Cent 



19-4 
I9.0 
18.7 
l6.2 
12.7 
9-3 
4.7 



1890. 



Rank 



Language 



English. . . 
German. . , 
Russian.. . 

French 

Spanish. . . 
Italian. . . . 
Portuguese 



Number 
Spoken by 



111,100,000 
75,200,000 
75,090,000 
51,200,000 
42,800,000 
33,400,000 
13,000,000 



Per Cent 



27.7 
18.7 
18.7 
12.7 
IO.7 

8.3 
3.2 



la New Era," p. 62. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 67 

The Anglo-Saxon race will probably domi- 
nate the earth and determine, under God, the 
destiny of mankind. The home of the race 
will be this Western Republic. In the hand 
of American citizenship, God places the glo- 
rious achievements of the past, the results of 
all the battles fought for human rights ; and 
that hand holds the destiny of the race. All 
that, a young man wields, when he attains 
his majority and becomes a citizen of the 
United States. It is a magnificent privilege. 
It is also an awful responsibility. 

There is an old English picture * that repre- 
sents a king wearing his crown, and under- 
neath is the inscription : "I govern all." By 
his side .is a bishop arrayed in ecclesiastical 
vestments, and beneath, "I pray for all." 
By his side is a soldier clad in full uniform, 
and beneath, " I fight for all." By his side 
is a farmer who reluctantly draws his purse 
and ruefully exclaims, "I pay for all." The 
American citizen combines all four. He 
rules, prays, fights for himself, and pays all 
expenses. Yea, more, he must answer for it 
all. Our legislators and judges are, after all, 
only the representatives of the people. If 

1 This picture is from the Roslyn Fresco in Roslyn Chapel, 
Roslyn, Scotland. 



68 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

there are bad laws, it is because some bad 
law-makers represent a bad constituency. 
The burden of responsibility impinges at last 
upon the individual voter, and he cannot rid 
himself of it. To refuse to vote is only to 
cast half a ballot for the crowd that wins. 

Perhaps some one may wonder why the 
youths are addressed on this subject. Many 
of them cannot even vote, and it must be 
years before they can hope to dominate poli- 
tics with a new policy. Very well ; all things 
come to those who wait. Men get their life- 
principles when they are young. If we can 
throw into political life a generation of en- 
thusiastic and courageous youths, with lofty 
ideals of citizenship and determined to exer- 
cise the same in the fear of God, the battle 
for clean and honest government will be won 
by and by. 

Patriotism is dying out. Even the senti- 
ment is the butt of ridicule for the ' ' practical 
politician." The iniquitous and sordid lust for 
office is quenching nobler impulses. The 
damned spoils system has its octopus-grip on 
politics. Many good men will not even stand 
for office. They are unwilling to subject their 
reputation to the malignant flings of political 
envy. They are unwilling to stoop to the 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 69 

means and methods by which elections are 
carried. Not a few have lost heart. The 
older men, by repeated failures in the effort 
to bring about reforms, have become discour- 
aged. They regard the task as hopeless. 
There is needed the presumptuous daring of 
youth to win this fight. The young men 
must be the Hercules to cleanse the Augean 
stable of modern politics. 

And so it is well for a young man, as early 
as possible, to feel the responsibilities of citi- 
zenship, even though he may not immediately 
exercise all of its privileges. That he do this 
for the weal of his state and country, I would 
suggest the following as guiding principles to 
the discharge of his duties to the state : — 

1. Keep posted on public questions. Study 
carefully the great economic problems that 
agitate the public mind and come before the 
country for settlement. Have intelligent 
views on all matters that confront citizenship. 
It is only thus that the reign of the partisan 
and professional politician can be overthrown. 
The death of ignorance will be the doom of 
demagoguery. 

2. Let the young man obey the laws of the 
land. Good citizenship presupposes good 
manners. There are laws against profanity 



70 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

and Sabbath-breaking. No blasphemer or 
Sabbath-breaker can be a good citizen, it 
matters not how he may vote. The truth is, 
citizenship is not comprised in the casting of 
a ballot. It matters not how much political 
influence a man may have, nor how many 
votes he may be able to tie to the party ma- 
chine, if he breaks the laws, he is an enemy 
to the state, and a menace to the com- 
munity. 

Magistrates and policemen are made neces- 
sary by violators of the law. There is such 
a thing as living so peaceably that these 
officers shall not be needed. A regiment was 
ordered to capture a small village in the Ty- 
rol. The town was peopled by a colony that 
did not believe in war. Tidings came that 
the army was on the march, but the peaceful 
villagers only said, ' ' If they will take us, they 
must." Soon the soldiers came marching in 
to the shrill music of the fifes, but a strange 
scene met their eyes. Yonder the farmer was 
at his plow, there the blacksmith was at his 
anvil, here the women were at their churns 
and spinning-wheels. The babies crowed to 
hear the music, and the children ran into the 
streets to see the gay uniforms of the soldiers. 
"Where are your soldiers?" was asked. 
"We have none," they replied. "But 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 71 

we have come to take the town." "Well, 
friends, it lies before you." "But is there 
nobody to fight ? " "No one." Here was 
something the books on war had not provided 
for. The village was absolutely bullet-proof. 
It was impossible to capture a town like that. 

The ideal condition will be reached when 
man will regard the rights of his neighbor so 
well, when all will keep Christ's golden rule of 
Christian neighborship so perfectly, that we 
shall no longer need policemen and criminal 
courts and jails. It seems a long way off 
now, but every citizen who keeps the laws of 
the land is contributing thereto a citizenship 
that will be potent in changing the ideal into 
the real. 

3. Vote. Exercise the right of franchise. 
Cast your ballot when election day comes 
around. If the privileges of American citizen- 
ship were worth purchasing with blood, they 
are surely worth preserving with a ballot. 
Evil wins on election day, because, too often, 
the good men in the community do not take 
the trouble to vote. Some one has said that 
a wet election day means a rum victory in 
New York City. 

Let the young man understand the value of 
his right to vote, and exercise that right. We 
Americans are queer people. We are the 



72 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

greatest sticklers in the world for our rights 
when any one attempts to interfere with them. 
But given peaceable possession thereof, and 
we treat them with woful neglect ourselves. 
If it were seriously threatened that the English 
Parliament should select the next president of 
the United States, there would be such a right- 
eous uprising of indignant American citizens, as 
would utterly pale the patriotic pyrotechnics 
of revolutionary days. And yet thousands of 
these same American citizens will stay com- 
fortably at home or contentedly at business, 
and allow a foreign-born and an illiterate 
population to determine who shall be the next 
president. 

Vote. God will hold you responsible for it. 
The man or the machine who cheats you out 
of it, is a worse thief than he who robs your 
safe. 

4. Let your citizenship be controlled by con- 
science. Vote your best convictions, let come 
what will. Do n't have two codes, one for 
the sanctuary and another for the polls. 
' ' What is morally wrong can never be polit- 
ically right." Pray God for a Christianity 
that will lead you to do more than sing psalms 
and make prayers and go to church. Let 
your religion go down to the roots, and be 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 73 

more concerned with voting right than with 
carrying an election. Do n't let your religion 
and your citizenship contradict each other. 
The future of the world is not determined by 
the result of a single election. You are doing 
more for America when you are in the minor- 
ity voting right, than when you are with the 
majority voting wrong. God wants some citi- 
zens in every State who will follow conscience, 
let the results be what they may. 

"Take, then, no thought for aught save truth and right, 
Content, if such thy fate, to die obscure ; 
Youth fails and honors ; fame may not endure, 
And loftier souls soon weary of delight. 

" Keep innocence ; be all a true man ought ; 
Let neither pleasure tempt, nor pain appall ; 
Who hath this, he hath all things, having naught ; 
Who hath it not, hath nothing, having all." 

It is not yet sufficiently demonstrated that 
our American nation is here to stay. We 
brag much about its greatness ; but its per- 
manence, its perpetuity, must rest on a more 
solid basis than Fourth of July orators. If 
the young men of our country will give such 
a citizenship as I have been describing, to our 
politics, they will have done much toward 
establishing and perpetuating American insti- 
tutions. 



74 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

II. 

There is a second truth, I said, contained 
in the verse of scripture cited at the beginning 
of this chapter. Not only should we get the 
guiding principles of our politics from heaven ; 
but our politics, our citizenship should be 

IN HEAVEN. 

There is another commonwealth. It is 
that of God's grace. There is another gov- 
ernment. It is the kingdom of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ. Let the young man 
have a citizenship in that. 

This citizenship in heaven is precious. It 
has been purchased with the blood of Cal- 
vary's cross. Its honors are the highest, its 
rights the most royal, its liberty the finest. 
To be a citizen of that commonwealth is to 
be an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus 
Christ. 

It would be a loss, but not the greatest, to 
be deprived of our citizenship on earth ; but 
to fail of this heavenly citizenship would be 
loss irreparable. As we live out our little 
span of time, we are using up our citizenship 
here, but we are only entering more and more 
fully upon the enjoyment of our citizenship 
on high. The two citizenships ought to har- 



THE YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS. 75 

monize. The earthly should be crowned, glo- 
rified, with the heavenly. 

It is God's purpose, as the years go by, for 
this heavenly commonwealth to absorb all 
others. It alone is'-the ideal state. As man- 
kind comes to know God better, comes to do 
his will more perfectly, human governments 
are merging into the divine, human sovereigns 
are laying their scepters at the feet of King 
Jesus, until at last the barriers that divide 
monarchies, republics, empires, shall all fade 
away ; the kingdoms of the world shall be- 
come the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
Christ ; the holy city, New Jerusalem, shall 
come down from God out of heaven, bringing 
heaven in its sweetness and full glory to our 
earth ; and a redeemed humanity shall join in 
hymning "coronation" to Christ Omnipotent. 

That is the vision of Christian seers. It is 
the golden goal of Christianity. When it will 
be realized, God only knows ; but every man 
whose earthly citizenship has caught upon it 
the celestial beauty of the heavenly, is hasten- 
ing the coming of that great time. 

It is said that a brave British officer 1 led 
his regiment through the darkness of night, 

1 This officer was H. Burnaby, author of "Ride to Khiva." 
He died at Tel el Kebir, under Sir Garnet Wolseley. 



76 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

over a dreary trackless waste, guided only by 
one bright star on which he kept his eye 
steadily fixed. In the gray dawn of the next 
morning when the battle was joined, he was 
the first to fall, mortally wounded. As his 
superior officer leaned over him, the dying 
man's brow was mantled with a blush of 
pride, as he said, ' ' Did n't I guide them 
straight, sir ?" 

"Our politics is in heaven. " There is the 
bright star by which we may find our way 
through the doubts and perplexities of our 
earthly citizenship. And, my brothers in the 
church, my comrades in the state, when at 
last we stand in the presence of the Supreme 
Ruler to render our account, to explain the 
influence and example of the life that is be- 
hind us, may it be ours to look up into the 
face of the Great King, and say, "Didn't I 
guide them straight ?" 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 

" And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting 
on the right side, arrayed in a white robe." Mark i6:j. 

The first Easter morning had dawned upon 
the earth. Christianity at last was demon- 
strated to be divine. Until now all had been 
uncertainty, suspense. Had Christ never come 
back from the tomb, the gospel would have 
been probable ; nothing more. But Christ 
has arisen, and the seal of divinity has been 
put on all that he ever said or did. 

The devout women have come in the gray 
dawn of that Easter morning to perform their 
deed of love. They bring frankincense and 
myrrh to anoint the body of their Master. 
Their gift has been consecrated by a Sabbath 
day's rest. They have come timorously, 
distrustingly ; they have come to be disap- 
pointed, amazed, enraptured. The stone has 
been rolled away from the mouth of the sepul- 
cher, and as they peer through the open 

[77] 



78 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

mouth of the tomb, down into its twilight, 
they are startled. The body of Jesus is gone ! 
In place thereof they behold an angel. 

"And entering into the tomb, they saw a 
young man sitting on the right side, arrayed 
in a white robe ; and they were amazed. 
And he saith unto them, Be not amazed ; ye 
seek Jesus the Nazarene, which hath been 
crucified ; he is risen ; he is not here ; behold, 
the place where they laid him ! " What did 
it all mean ? It was one of the birth-hours of 
the world. Prophecies were being fulfilled 
with the rapidity of lightning. Events, trivial 
in themselves, had in them the significance 
of all the ages. What was the meaning of 
that immortal youth, from the celestial land, 
clad in spotless white, and proclaiming to be- 
wildered mortals the first tidings of a resur- 
rected Christ ! It meant much. 

It meant to proclaim the immortal youth, 
the eternal vigor of the gospel. The story of 
Christ's love would never grow nerveless and 
tame, would never lose its grasp and freshness. 
Centuries have gone by since then, and the 
gospel of the Nazarene is still as strong and 
robust as in its pristine youth. O * ' Gospel 
of the glory of the blessed God," — 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 79 

"... from the womb of the morning, thou hast the dew 
of thy youth." 1 

The vision meant also to proclaim the 
whiteness of the life made clean in the blood 
of Jesus. The young man arrayed in a white 
robe was a picture of the believer clad in 
the white robe of the saints, wrapt 'round 
with the spotless mantle of Christ's faultless 
righteousness. The purest deeds, the clean- 
est living, the most irreproachable conduct 
have ever been that whose key-note was 
struck in the life of Jesus Christ. 

Furthermore I think the vision was in- 
tended to teach us that Christianity is a relig- 
ion of gladness and delight ; that it does not 
quench the bounding spirits and buoyant joy 
that thrills the young. One can have upon 
him the glow and elasticity of youth, and still 
be loyal to Jesus, and devout enough to stand 
in the tomb where the Lord lay. The gospel 
does not create long faces, and funeral tones. 
It does not put old heads on young shoulders. 
It does not shrivel the marrow in our bones 
nor dry up the juices in our flesh. It har- 
monizes with all the glad songs of youth. 

But in addition to all this, I think the 
young man, waiting in the empty tomb of 

1 Ps. 110:3. 



80 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

Joseph of Arimathea, and making the glow 
of the Easter dawn radiant with the tidings 
that Jesus had arisen from the dead, was pro- 
claiming the attitude which God would have 
young men occupy toward the gospel in every 
age. The first herald of the risen Christ was 
not a woman but a man, and not an old man 
but a young man. Christ would have young 
men proclaim him to the world, and the fittest 
herald of the cross is a young man. And so 
right at the beginning of Christianity as a 
divinely authenticated system, right in the 
sepulcher which had witnessed Christ's pro- 
foundest humiliation and sublimest victory, we 
have the theme of this chapter : — 

THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 

In the previous chapters, I have written of 
the other sides of a young man's life, — the 
young man in business, which is his work-day 
life ; the young man in society, which is his 
play-day life ; the young man in politics, 
which is his citizenship life. And now I come 
to that which is more important than any, — 
the crown of all, — the young man in religion, 
which is his immortal life. 

And yet, perhaps nowhere else are we so 
careless, so utterly unmindful of results, as in 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION 81 

that which pertains to our religious experi- 
ence. It was a pertinent question which a 
little boy asked, when climbing upon his fa- 
ther's knee. He said: "Papa, is your soul 
insured ? " ' ' Why do you ask, my son ? " 
1 ' Because I heard uncle George say that you 
had your house insured, and your life insured, 
but he did not believe that you thought of 
your soul, and he was afraid you would lose 
it. Can't you get it insured right away ? " 

The child fired a center-shot. We insure 
our houses, and we insure our goods, and we 
insure our cargoes, and we insure our lives, — 
we even insure our horses and dogs ; but 
when it comes to our souls, the immortal 
part, we are strangely and culpably neglect- 
ful. And yet, if God is true, the soul is im- 
measurably more precious than all the rest. 

I care not how successful you may be in 
business, — you may amass a fortune, you 
may become a wizard of Wall street, and 
have the world's markets for your key-board ; 
I care not how brilliant you may be in society, 
— you may be courted and flattered, you may 
be sought after for your social charms and 
graces ; I care not how fortunate you may 
be in politics, — you may have your highest 
ambitions gratified, and be preferred to offi- 



82 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

cial dignity above your fellows ; still if you are 
irreligious, if you are godless, if you have shut 
the divine out of your life, there is a grave 
and mighty blemish on your being, you are 
still unfinished, incomplete. Only those who 
reach up to God through Christ can ever at- 
tain unto the full stature of a perfect manhood. 

Our religion gives character and direction to 
every other phase of our being. Religious 
conviction is the substratum of character. If 
those convictions are weak, loosely formed, 
the whole character will be tottering and un- 
steady. 

It matters not how well a gun may be 
loaded, if it is pointed in the wrong direction, 
it is useless, possibly worse. It matters not 
how well a human life may be furnished, if it is 
misdirected, it is forceless. Religion gives 
life aim, right direction. It was General 
Jackson's piety that dominated and directed 
his superb military genius. The same may be 
said of Oliver Cromwell. 

I once saw a row of buildings tottering to 
ruin. They were of comparatively recent con- 
struction. The architecture was rather preten- 
tious, the materials, — sand-stone, and brick, — 
good enough, but the foundation was defec- 
tive. It was near an inlet of the sea that 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 83 

the buildings had been erected, and piling 
was necessary to give a good foundation. 
This had been omitted, and the buildings 
went to ruin, and have since been torn down, 
the cracked and leaning walls having become 
a menace to every passer-by. 

On inquiry I found that the buildings had 
been erected by a Catholic priest, and I could 
not help wondering whether his views on 
religion had not unconsciously shaped his 
views as to the construction of houses. His 
faith, which makes much of works of merit 
and prayers to the Virgin and the saints, 
which sometimes forgets that ' ' other founda- 
tion can no man lay than that which is laid, 
which is Jesus Christ," 1 — this faith gives 
more heed to the superstructure than to the 
substructure ; and what more natural, when 
he tries his hand at building houses, than for 
him to follow his creed, and slight the foun- 
dation ? 

" Religion is the chief concern 
Of mortals here below," — 

for it influences, more or less, the whole man. 
Young men are prone to neglect religion ; 
more so, perhaps, than any other class. 
There are between seven and eight million 
young men in the United States. It is de- 

1 I Cor. 3 : II. 



84 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

clared by statisticians that, on an average, 
only twenty-five out of every one hundred 
young men attend church. Where are the 
other seventy-five ? — On the streets, in the 
saloons, in the parks, anywhere save where 
God's voice can be heard, and his Christ be 
found. 

It is also stated that, of the young men in 
this country, " 95 per cent do not belong to 
church ; 97 per cent do nothing for the 
church ; 70 per cent of our incarcerated crimi- 
nals are young men ; 90 per cent (nearly) of 
all crimes are committed by young men; 85 
per cent of the patrons of saloons and bagnios 
are young men." I do not vouch for the ab- 
solute accuracy of these figures, but they must 
be approximately correct. What a fearful in- 
dictment do they present against the young 
manhood of America ! 

Young men pass through a stage of what we 
may call ' ' adolescent or school-boy skepti- 
cism." It marks the dawn of independent 
thought, when the youth has an idea that he 
is a little more of a man for saying : "I have 
my honest doubts." He is rather proud of 
the achievement of calling in question the old- 
fashioned faiths of his ancestors, and he has a 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION 85 

notion that what he has once been called to 
question, is for that reason, forever after un- 
worthy of unquestioning confidence. 

Now, young men, we may as well set it 
down once for all that skepticism is weakness, 
not strength ; and that a doubt instead of 
being something to boast of is something to be 
ashamed of and deplore. 

' i It was Goethe who cried out in despair, 
1 Give us your convictions. As for doubts, we 
have enough of them already. ' " No better 
advice has been given to the skeptical young 
man than that clear word of Dr. Charles F. 
Deems, * ' Believe your beliefs and doubt your 
doubts. Do not make the common mistake 
of skeptics, doubting your beliefs and believ- 
ing your doubts." Bishop Whittle of the 
Diocese of Virginia, tells of an interview that 
he once had with a thoughtful scholar, who 
said that he had read every book he could find 
that assailed Jesus Christ. And said the 
man : ' ' I should long since have become an 
infidel, but for three things : — 

i ' First, I am a man. I am going some- 
where. To-night I am a day nearer the 
grave than I was last night. I have read all 
such books can tell me. They shed not one 



86 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

solitary ray of hope or light upon the dark- 
ness. They shall not take away the guide 
and leave me stone blind. 

1 ' Secondly, I had a mother. I saw her go 
down into the dark valley where I am going, 
and she leaned on an unseen arm as calmly as 
a child goes to sleep on its mother's breast. 
I knew that she was not deceived. 

i ' Thirdly, I have three motherless daughters, 
They have no protector but myself. I would 
rather kill them than leave them in this sinful 
world, if you blot out from it all the teachings 
of the gospel." 

Young men, these are not theories, these 
are not empty platitudes, glittering generali- 
ties, vague abstractions. They are the most 
intensely practical problems of life, and before 
such considerations, your school-boy skepti- 
cism vanishes, like mists before a majestic 
sunrise. 

If you have honest doubts on questions con- 
nected with religion, the remedy for your 
doubt is not argument. That will only con- 
firm you in your delusion. The best cure for 
religious doubts is a Christian experience. 

A young man came to see me one day, and 
wanted to talk on the subject of religion. He 
bepan by saying : "I can't believe certain 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 87 

portions of the Bible. I 'd like to be religious, 
but I have doubts about some of the miracles, 
especially Jonah and the whale, and the 
Gadarene swine." I said: " Do you feel 
yourself to be a lost sinner without Christ ? " 
4 'No, I cannot say that I do." "Well, my 
dear- fellow, it will do no good to argue with 
you about these miracles. That will settle 
nothing, but if you are genuinely converted, 
the doubts will disappear of themselves." 
Three months later he came back, his face 
aglow with joy, and said : "I have only come 
to tell you that God has saved me, and my 
doubts are all gone." A Christian experience 
had accomplished what argument could never 
have done. That is Christ's plan of settling 
doubts. i i If any man willeth to do his will, 
he shall know of the teaching, whether it be 
of God, or whether I speak from myself." 1 

A great poet was once asked if he could prove 
the divine character of Christianity with a sin- 
gle argument, and he replied, "Yes, try it." 
Let the young man give religion an honest 
trial. That is but a fair demand. That is all 
God asks ; and with God be the rest. That 
will bring the young man and the gospel to- 
gether. The chasm will be closed, and we 
shall have the young man in religion. 

^ohn 7:17. 



88 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

Let us look at this subject from two stand- 
points : — 

1 . The young man needs religion, 

2. Religion needs the young man. 

I. 

The young man needs religion. Why ? — 
For many reasons. He needs it that he may 
make the best of both worlds. There are 
two worlds, the now and the hereafter, the 
temporal and the eternal. We want to pos- 
sess ourselves of both. It is poor policy to 
forfeit the next world in order to have a good 
time in this ; and it is poor religion to ruin 
this world in order to gain the next. It is a 
diseased piety that projects all happiness 
beyond the graveyard, and makes all hope 
revolve around the cemetery. God is the God 
of both worlds. He can be found in each, 
and he would have his creatures make the 
best ot both. How ? — By serving him. It 
is only through Christ that we can possess 
ourselves of the joys and powers of the world 
to come ; and it is only as we follow the pat- 
tern which he set us while he lived incarnate 
on the earth, that we can attain contentment 
and true dignity of life in the world that is 
now. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 89 

We need to open our hearts to religious 
influences while we are young, because youth 
is the impressionable period of life. There is 
a moment in the history of the plaster cast 
when it is responsive to the slightest influ- 
ence, and the lightest touch leaves its impres- 
sion ; but that moment past, to change the 
cast, it must be broken. It is very much that 
way in character formation. In youth, we 
are sensitive, easily impressed. The life is 
taking shape, and it is of supreme importance 
that God have a hand in the making of the 
man. 

The young man needs religion that he 
may have strength to resist the innumerable 
temptations that beset him. There is no 
other class subjected to such insidious, seduc- 
tive, persistent, and damning temptations ; 
and subjected under conditions and at an age 
when it is hardest to resist. It is not neces- 
sary to go to grog-shops and bagnios to find 
these temptations. The devil's work is car- 
ried on in many a counting-room, in many a 
parlor. The devil's snares are set for the un- 
wary feet of young men by those of whom 
better things might be expected. You are 
tempted to stifle your conscience, to falsify 
accounts, to misrepresent, and your position 



90 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

is the bribe for which you are asked to sell 
your honor. The voice of a companion, a 
fellow-clerk, says : ' * Come go with us to- 
night. Do n't be so prosy. Let 's have a 
gay time. No one will ever know it." The 
young man who resists all these, and keeps 
himself unsullied must have faith in God. 

The young man that comes fresh from a 
country life into the rush and sin of the aver- 
age American city will be almost inevitably 
sucked down into the cesspool of vice and dis- 
sipation unless he be girded about with strong 
religious convictions. We are all familiar 
with such instances. A young man comes 
from the quiet and seclusion of a country 
home, to take a position with some business 
firm. He is quick, energetic, full of force and 
fire, industrious ; and the older business men 
begin to notice him, and they say, " Young 
Jones is going to succeed. He has a bright 
future. He will be heard from." The months 
go by and the young man disappears. What 
is the trouble ? Some one inquires after him, 
and the reply is : \ ' O, he fell in with a gay 
set. He became too fast. His salary was 
overdrawn, his work neglected. He got his 
walking papers one morning, and has gone 
back to the country to reflect." That or 
something worse. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION 91 

Now, it will not do for you to try to excuse 
yourself after you have fallen. It won't do 
for you to plead the baby act, as Eve did, 
and say, ' i The serpent beguiled me, and I 
did eat." * It avails nothing for you to plead : 
"I was tempted. I was over-persuaded." 
Where was your will power ? Where was 
your individuality ? Where was your man- 
hood ? Nobody forced you, nobody com- 
pelled you. You were tempted, I grant, but 
who made you yield to temptation ? It was 
your own free act, and you can never amount 
to much until you learn to control yourself. 

Nearly all young men expect to be great 
some day. They have different ideas as to 
the way this ambition is to be realized. 
Some would be scholars, some statesmen, 
some inventors, some painters, some men of 
affairs. There is however a sine qua non to 
any sort of greatness. It is the mastery of 
self. No man has ever yet been truly great 
who had not first acquired the mastery over 
himself ; and whatever else he may fail of, he 
is already truly great who has won this vic- 
tory. i ' He that ruleth his spirit, is better 
than he that taketh a city." 2 

For all this the young man needs religion. 
He needs faith in Jesus Christ. He needs the 

1 Gen. 3 : 13. 2 Prov. 16 : 32. 



92 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

moorings of religious convictions. He needs 
all the vacuum within filled with God's truth, 
until evil can find no place to enter. He 
needs some of that sublime strength of char- 
acter which enabled Joseph, Nehemiah, Dan- 
iel to stand unshaken when swept by the 
fiercest storms of temptation. He needs to be 
so finished out by God that he can ever stand 
' ' foursquare to all the winds that blow. " 

He needs to be something more than relig- 
ious. It does not count for much to go 
through religious performances, to have re- 
ligious associations touch you on the outside. 
They must fill you, flood you, saturate you. 
' 'It is not worth while being religious" says 
Prof. Henry Drummond, "unless you are al- 
together religious. It won't do to be merely 
playing at religion, or having religion on us as a 
bit of veneer. It must saturate us. Some seek 
first the kingdom of God. Others put it in a 
second place. Then prayer-meetings are 
dull, and fellowship gatherings are uninterest- 
ing. But the moment a man begins to seek 
first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
ness, all things are right. Any man who has 
not heartily thrown himself into the kingdom 
of God, but who is seeking secondly the king- 
dom of God, may be religious ; but there is 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 93 

something he loves more, and both worlds are 
spoiled to him. He has neither the cream of 
the one, nor of the other. The great desid- 
eratum of the present day is not more Chris- 
tians, but a better brand of them." 

Young men, dare to be religious, in the fin- 
est, loftiest, grandest meaning of that word. 
Do n't allow yourselves to be laughed out of 
your reverence for the word of God and the 
piety of your father and mother. Don't con- 
sider it a disgrace to be called "good. " 
Don't be coaxeduand wheedled and seduced 
into forbidden sins. Have some courage. 
If you can do no more, do as Luther did at 
the Diet of Worms, when he said, ' i Here I 
stand, I can do naught else. God help me. 
Amen ! " 

The gospel is in sympathy with young men. 
That scene at the tomb of Jesus settles that. 
Therefore have a stout heart, and dare to be 
religious. 

What sort of religion are you to strive for ? 
There are many brands. Let yours be a 
manly religion. Do n't let it degenerate into 
cant. Do n't let it melt down into mushy 
sentimentalism. Do n't let it die away into 
a starveling rite, the naked bones of formal- 
ism and ritual. Do n't let it lapse into a 



94 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

moss-grown, mildewed theology. Let it be 
sincere and straightforward. Let it be clear- 
cut and stalwart. Let it be sympathetic and 
tender. Let it be fine-grained and broad- 
brained. Let it be rich, full, free, divine, 

Dr. James Stalker has given us three fine 
summaries of " a young man's religion : " — 

i. Not a creed, but an experience. 

2. Not a restraint, but an inspiration. 

3. Not an insurance for the next, but a pro- 
gram for the present world. 

Take these as in some sense a guide to what 
you are to strive for in religion. Study God's 
word much, and pray. Keep your mind free 
to every wind that blows, while your faith 
abides unwavering in Jesus Christ. This will 
bring the young man what he needs for all 
the strain and struggle of life, — a manly 
Christianity. 

II. 

Let us now turn the phrase around. Re- 
ligion needs the young man. Can it be true ? 
Is that more than a pious sentiment ? Is there 
a real, pressing sense in which it may be said 
that the kingdom of Christ needs the energies 
of young men ? — Yes, a hundred times, yes ! 
Would that young men might hear this call 
that comes from God ; and understand that 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 95 

God saves us not so much for what we are as 
for what, by his divine strength and guidance, 
we may do. 

It is God's plan and purpose to redeem the 
lost world. For this Christ gave his life on 
the cross. A sacrifice sufficient for all men 
has been made. But how to bring the fin- 
ished work of Christ in contact with the lost 
world — that is the supreme problem in this 
dispensation wherein we live. 

" Christ alone can save the world, 
But Christ cannot save the world alone." 

Religion needs young men to help bring the 
lost world back to God ; to form the missing 
link which shall reunite the broken chain that 
holds the world to the cross. 

The young man, in the tomb, heralding the 
risen Christ, is a portraiture of the mission 
Jesus Christ would lay upon young manhood 
in every age. It is to be the herald of himself 
to men. 

And there are many reasons why young 
men are especially and pre-eminently fitted for 
this work. St. John says : ' ' I have written 
unto you young men because ye are strong." 1 
They have the physical strength, the mental 
vigor, the freedom, the enthusiasm, the cour- 
age, the ardor that has not been dulled by de- 

1 i John 2 : 14. 



96 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

feat. Young men are "strong" in a score of 
ways for the work of preaching Christ to a lost 
world ; and while their work only grows more 
valuable with years and experience, it is un- 
doubtedly from the ranks of the young men 
that Christ does and must call the heralds of 
the gospel. 

Many a young man is casting about for a 
life-work. What vocation shall he follow ? 
What department of human labor shall com- 
mand the powers of his being ? Shall it be a 
clerkship, a trade, a profession ? I commend 
to all such a calling. Carefully and seriously 
consider whether God does not call you to 
preach the gospel to your fellow-men. The 
professions are crowded, the trades are in sharp- 
est competition, the clerkships are overflowing. 
With all these the line of success is along the 
law of the survival of the fittest. There is 
one vocation where the ranks are not yet full. 
It is the gospel ministry. Now, as in the 
olden times, it may be said : ' ' The harvest 
truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. 
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, 
that he send forth laborers into his harvest. " * 

It is the bounden duty of every human be- 
ing to follow that calling in life by which he 
can best glorify God. Let him study his gifts 
!Matt. 9:37, 38. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION 97 

and his surroundings, and thus, under God's 
guidance, settle that. We hear profoundly 
impracticable disquisitions about some mys- 
terious "call of the Spirit," and many a young 
man is virtually waiting to be roused from 
slumber, as was the child Samuel, by some 
audible voice that shall call him into the min- 
istry. That is not the way the call of the 
Spirit comes in these days. Use your com- 
mon sense. Let mysterious voices alone. 
Honestly and squarely confront this question : 
How can I best glorify God ? By a trade ? 
Then be a carpenter. By a profession ? 
Then be a lawyer. By a commercial career ? 
Then go into business. By preaching the 
gospel ? Then enter the ministry. 

I would not have you take to preaching be- 
cause you are a failure at everything else. 
Nor would I have you enter the ministry 
merely to get a livelihood. If you do, you 
will make a dismal failure, and the work itself 
will be intolerably distasteful. 

A Jewish rabbi, who was then selling pianos, 
once said to me : "I was in charge of such a 
synagogue for fifteen years. " i ' Why did you 
give it up ?" I asked. "O I got tired of de 
piziness. " No wonder. Any man who re- 
gards the ministry as a business, and who is 
7 



98 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

"in it for what he can get out of it, " will 
soon grow inexpressibly tired of the business. 
His life will be a sham, and he must go about 
wearing a hypocrite's mask. 

On the other hand, entered from the right 
motives, there is no vocation which brings 
such joy, such satisfaction, such unsullied 
ambitions, such lofty ideals and aspirations. 
If one is not much of a man to start with, 
and enters the gospel ministry from the right 
motives, a great man will be made out of him, 
before many years have gone by. Not great 
according to the various standards of the 
world, but great in all those traits of charac- 
ter and deeds of life which alone make men 
truly great. He lives daily in the presence 
of the highest ideals, and is tempted ever to 
strive for the perfect. This lifts him, and he 
proves that there is such a thing as hitching 
one's wagon to a star, until he can kick the 
earth from beneath his feet. 

But I would not have you conclude that one 
must be a preacher before he can do aught 
in helping to bring the lost world back to 
God. Far from it. You can do work like this 
in any calling, if you will only live Christ. 
Indeed, after all, that is the way the world is 
to be changed. * i The good seed, these are 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 99 

the sons of the kingdom." 1 What is chiefly 
needed is not more churches and more preach- 
ers, but more "sons of the kingdom," more 
men with the kingdom of God within them, 
who shall go down into the lost world, among 
its children, and patiently, earnestly, lovingly 
live the Christ-life over again. That will 
change the world, and that you can do, it 
matters not what your vocation. 

In the last few decades, God has been stir- 
ring the hearts of the young, as never before, 
to take a more active part in this blessed 
work. It is the age of ' ' young people's 
movements." A phenomenon in the church 
life of the present is the prolific birth and un- 
precedented growth of young people's soci- 
eties. In some instances these societies have 
enrolled thousands, and in one case more than 
a million members. With compact, yet flex- 
ible organization, with widespread enthusiasm, 
with sagacious foresight, with a consecration 
that captures esteem, they plan their work, 
enter heartily upon personal service, create a 
distinct literature, send out missionaries, and 
organize in heathen and pagan lands. 

It is the era of Sunday-schools, of the 
Young Men's Christian Association, of the 
Students' Volunteer Movement. Young men 
1 Matt. 13 : 38. 



100 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

are hearkening to the call of religion as never 
before, and are entering upon its sublime mis- 
sion. God grant that what we see may be 
but the beginnings of a great turning to the 
Lord. 

Young men, listen ! Catch the word that 
comes down from above. Fall into line and 
march, keeping step with the good of all ages. 

The opening chapter had to do with the 
young man in business ; the closing with the 
young man in religion. Let us now couple 
those two words together, business and re- 
ligion. 

i. Our business should have our religion. 
We should never divorce the secular and spir- 
itual so utterly as to shut our religious con- 
victions clean out of our business. A man 
should be as good a Christian while selling 
goods or making contracts on Monday as 
when taking sacrament on Sunday. Let our 
business life be swayed by faith in God. 

2. Our religion should have our business. 
A good man is not necessarily a crank, a fa- 
natic. Faith does not destroy reason. Many 
a man's religion would be vastly improved, 
if he would bring it under the sway of the 
sound, common-sense maxims of business life. 
This would translate his religion from the 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 101 

sphere of sentiment into that of practice. It 
would vitalize his creed, and rid him of a deal 
of gray moss. 

3. Our religion should be our business. 
That is the conclusion of the whole matter. 
That is the main point of all that I have 
written. ' ' Man's chief end is to glorify God, 
and to enjoy him forever." 1 Religion should 
be the main thing. All else should be sec- 
ondary, tributary. Mr. Gladstone is reported 
to have said on one occasion : ' ' Talk about 
the questions of the day, there is but one 
question, and that is the gospel. It can and 
will correct everything that needs correction. 
All men at the head of great movements are 
Christian men. During the many years I was 
in the cabinet, I was brought into association 
with sixty master minds, and all but five of 
them were Christians. My only hope for the 
world is in bringing the human mind in con- 
tact with divine revelation." 2 Religion is the 
chief thing. Let us make religion our busi- 
ness. 

In the eighth Psalm, we are given the por- 
trait of ideal manhood : — 

1 Shorter Catechism, Ques. 1. 

2 To Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., at Hawarden 
Castle, Jan. 24, 1890. 



102 THE YOUNG MAM FOURSQUARE. 

4 'What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? 
And the Son of man, that thou visitest him ? 
For thou hast made him but little lower than God, 
And crownest him with glory and honor. 
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of 

thy hands ; 
Thou hast put all things under his feet." 

Such is what God intended us to be. But 
alongside of this picture drawn by the Hebrew 
poet, we place ourselves. By the side of man 
as he should be, we place man as he is. Be- 
side the portrait of ideal manhood we hang 
the portrait of real manhood. What a con- 
trast ! The real man is dominated by fear, 
defiled by lust, sunken in brutal delights, 
a slave to base passions, the victim of 
a thousand foes. Manhood is discrowned. 
Man is fallen. 

Well, is there no hope ? Can we never 
regain what has been lost ? Can we never at- 
tain unto that splendid portrait of the Psalm- 
ist ? Let us see. The author of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, in commenting on this eighth 
Psalm, says : 4 ' One has somewhere testified, 
saying, What is man that thou art mindful of 
him ? Or the Son of man that thou visitest 
him ? . . . Thou didst put all things in sub' 
jection under his feet." * 

1 Heb. 2 : 6-8. 



THE YOUNG MAN IN RELIGION. 103 

Then the writer continues : ' ' Now we see 
not yet all things subjected to him. But we 
behold him who hath been made a little lower 
than the angels, even Jesus." Ah, that is 
the magic name ! We see manhood ruined 
by the fall, but we also see Jesus. There is 
hope. Jesus is the Redeemer and Restorer 
of lost and fallen man. We are ' i complete 
in him." Real manhood attains to ideal man- 
hood through Jesus. Discrowned manhood is 
recrowned by Christ. 

We behold Jesus ! Young man, follow him. 
Let that be the supreme aim of life, and you 
will reach the finest destiny. 

We are living in a noble age. It was never 
so good a time to live as it is now. We are 
possessed of the achievements of all those 
who have gone before us. We confront the 
piled-up opportunities of all the ages. In- 
numerable inventions have dowered human 
effort with a scope and power, rarely dreamed 
of in other times. A young man now is a 
bigger god than was ever Jupiter. He has 
more power. It is a superb time in which to 
do a life-work. God challenges us to do our 
utmost, and thrills us with celestial ambitions. 
May we not fail ! 



104 THE YOUNG MAN FOURSQUARE. 

" A time like this demands 
Great hearts, strong minds, true faith, and willing hands. 
Men whom the lust of office does not kill ; 

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; 
Men who possess opinions and a will ; 

Men who have honor ; men who will not lie." x 

To be a young man on the right side of the 
King ; to be clothed in the faultless righteous- 
ness of Christ, to get a commission straight 
from the throne of God, to be crowned unto 
manhood's completeness by Jesus, and thus to 
do life's work — that will be to make no fail- 
ure. It will be to have done some good here. It 
will be to find a welcome yonder. 

" There 's a fount about to stream, 
There 's a light about to gleam, 
There 's a midnight darkness changing into day ; 
Men of thought, and men of action, clear the way." 

1 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



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